Electronic Arts plans to produce action game titles, rivaling well-known video game developers and publishers such as Ubisoft and Take Two. EA Executive Vice President Patrick Soderlund hopes to expand the studio's market from shooters, role-playing games and sports games to massive open-world action games.
Action games take up the majority of the video game market, and the Swedish executive is aware of that, noting popular titles such as Assassin's Creed, Batman and Grand Theft Auto. Soderlund wants a piece of the pie and intends to get things into gear with Electronic Arts-owned studio Motive, but he makes it clear that it's not "going to go after GTA" or anything like that.
"The strategic direction that we put in motion is to expand our portfolio more into that segment, to see what can we bring to gamers that maybe hasn't been done before," Soderlund tells IGN in an interview.
The Swedish executive also says that Electronic Arts is willing to invest a lot of money for even more brand new IPs to make its upcoming action title happen.
With the Montreal-based studio Motive, Electronic Arts has a noteworthy contender on its side, as it's led by Jade Raymond, the former managing director of Ubisoft. Raymond played a pivotal role in creating games such as Assassin's Creed, Watch Dogs and The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot, and because of her vast experience, Soderlund believes that she is a key player in making a successful action-packed EA Games title.
"You need a leadership and people that have done this in the best and they've done it successfully in the past," Soderlund says of the Motive studio in the interview.
Aside from working on the action title for EA, Motive's first assignment is to assist Visceral in developing an unannounced Star Wars project, which is led by former Naughty Dog director Amy Hennig, who is known for performing a central role in making Jak and Daxter and Uncharted.
To wrap things up, Soderlund says Raymond "wanted to try something different," which is where the idea for an action game came from. We can expect a gigantic action-packed title from EA soon, but Soderlund suggests that the open-world aspect is still only a possibility.
